Anxiety and Happiness - Dennis AMA

Life Audio. On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.

In Morocco, I went one Saturday to the Jewish community in Marrakesh, Morocco. Went to the synagogue and then I was invited to a home. I remember the home, they had like 4 daughters and they wanted me to choose which one I wanted to marry. It was very adorable. And then Saturday night after the Sabbath ended, it's dark out, I walked out of what they call the Jewish ghetto. I walked out with young Jews and all of a sudden on motorcycles drove up a gang of Moroccans, Muslims, and started screaming in French, "Zionists, Zionists!" And they started beating the Jews. And I remember thinking, I can't stand by. This is— I'm not going to let this happen and stand by.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.

Dennisprager.com. Gerard in Pasadena, California: Is there anything Jews could have done to avert the Holocaust? Is there anything Jews can do today to avert the rise in antisemitism globally? Thank you and God bless. Well, I do think so, actually, and I wrote about it in my book Why the Jews 40 years ago. The third edition of it is coming out, has never gone out of print. It's worthy of your reading. It explains anti-Semitism. It's called Why the Jews. And I wrote at the end, this— the solution to anti-Semitism, to Jew hatred, is the same as the cause of Jew hatred, in my opinion. So listen to this, this will fascinate you. The second holiest work in Judaism is the Talmud, written by rabbis about 1,800 years ago. And it's, it's a gigantic work, it's the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica. And the rabbis asked in it, about 2,000 years ago, What's the cause of Jew hatred? And they answered with a pun on Hebrew words, and you'll get it because you won't know what the words mean, but you'll, you'll hear how similar the sound is. Sinai and Sina. Sinai is Sinai, Mount Sinai, where the Jews got the Ten Commandments, traditionally believed where they got the Torah, but Certainly the Ten Commandments. That's seen at Sinai. Sinah is hatred. The rabbi's play on words was the sinah comes from Sinai. The hatred comes from Mount Sinai, which I believe the, the Jews have. The, the Jews disrupted the whole world with the, with the concept of judging God, a morally demanding God. Who is invisible, etc. So this, this was how the hatred began. And my insight is that that is how the hatred can end. Sinai, Mount Sinai, is the cause of Jew hatred, and Mount Sinai is the solution to Jew hatred. The more people who embrace the Ten Commandments as written in the Bible and believe that the, the God who revealed himself first to the Jews gave these Ten Commandments, the world lives by them, Jew hatred will subside. Jews have missed the boat in not spreading The Ten Commandments. Religious Jews don't spread much except for one group called Chabad, and secular Jews spread secular religions: feminism, environmentalism, Marxism, socialism, communism, egalitarianism, I mean, you name the ism. Anna in San Antonio, Texas. You mentioned in Dennis and Julie— you should all watch Dennis and Julie, they're magnificent podcasts with Julie, this 24-year-old, and myself. It's, it's really worth listening or watching. Dennis and Julie, you mentioned in Dennis and Julie that Americans are trusting people, are a trusting people because we have freedom. Could you expand on that please? I come from a non-communist country with a population that is over 60, over 80% Catholic, and I would consider it a free country as well, but we don't have nearly the level of trust in strangers that I've noticed here in the United States. I would love to hear your thoughts about this since I've always been puzzled as to why Americans are so trusting even in the middle of the chaotic times in which we live. Thank you. Great. All these questions are terrific. So it, it, it has always been remarkable to me because I've been to 130+ countries. The amount of trust among strangers, you can see it in the fact that Americans will open up to strangers. I don't mean divulge personal secrets, though that's true too. Just open up in the elevator. If you go to Europe, a bunch of Dutchmen in the elevator are not going to start talking to each other the way a bunch of Americans will. There, there is a level of trust. I'm not certain why it exists here more than in Europe. I don't know, because they have, you know, basic free countries as we do, though it's being threatened. So it's— it is a fair question. I'll tell you this, what started it was a rejection of Latin American familism. A man named Lawrence Harrison, who was in USAID in Latin America much of his life, then went to Harvard, wrote a book, Who Prosperes. It's a very intelligent book. And he notes in it what I call, what he calls familism. Discrimination on the basis of family or blood. In Latin America, you hired people if they were related to you. Could be through marriage, but it was people you were related to. Not in America. In America, you hired the most qualified person. I think that that actually taught Americans you could trust non-blood people, whereas in much of Latin America you can only trust blood. That's why they don't— they don't have almost any adoption in South America. We have a vast amount of adoption in North America. I mean, I got to give Protestants the credit here because that's what it is. North America is Protestant. Or was founded by Protestants. But whether they get the credit or not, that is what has happened. We, we learned to trust the non-relative, and they didn't. It's a big deal. Loma Linda, California. Hi, Dennis. My Rational Bible Sabbath School class at Loma Linda University has a question for you. I love that, that she has a rational Bible. It's my work on the Bible class. Recently, in one of your Genesis lectures, in the context of the Joseph story, we heard you say that it may or may not be literally true. It really doesn't matter to you whether it is or isn't, because what matters in these stories are the issues God intended for us some for the story of Job, same for the story of Job, Noah, etc. We get that. However, in the past, I believe I have read or heard you say that if the Exodus story isn't true, if Moses didn't literally lead the Jews out of Egypt, you could no longer be a religious Jew because your whole religion would be based on a fallacy. Could you kindly explain the difference? Thanks, etc., etc. Okay, Janine in Loma Linda. Well, wonderful, Janine. So there are two issues here. First, I don't recall saying it doesn't matter to me whether the Joseph story is true or not. I've only said that about the Garden of Eden, whether it was literally true. And I don't have a position on that. All I would say is that whether you take it literally or not, the profundity is what matters. But in general, I do believe the stories of the Bible, including the Joseph story. But yes, among all the stories, the stories of the Exodus is unparalleled. Judaism rests on two events. This is not my take. This is Judaism's take about itself. It rests on two events: Creation and Exodus. And it's constantly said that this is done in remembrance of the creation of the world. This is done in, in commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt. That, that is correct. That is, that those are the two foundations. It's like sort of, I think it's analogous to crucifixion and resurrection in Christianity. And if they, if one of them didn't happen, then you sort of lost Christianity. If the Exodus from Egypt didn't happen, it's just a story, you've sort of lost Judaism. So that's, that's the way in which I mean it. It is the central human story. The central divine story is the creation of the world.

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Uh, Henry in Nashville, Tennessee. Were you ever in fear for your life in any of your trips abroad? I would assume Russia in your 20s. Anywhere else? I wasn't afraid for my life in Russia. I was afraid I'd be caught and beaten, but I wasn't afraid of my life. I wasn't afraid for my life. That's true. But I did have one occasion where I was— I was 20 years old and I was visiting Morocco. And it was the Christmas vacation or winter vacation as it came to be known, unfortunately. And I decided to go down all through Europe by train and then take the boat to Morocco. It was the cheapest way I could get there. That's when I began my world travels. In Morocco, I went one Saturday to the Jewish community in Marrakesh, Morocco. Went to the synagogue and then I was invited to a home. I remember the home, they had like 4 daughters and they wanted me to choose which one I wanted to marry. It was very adorable. And then Saturday night after the Sabbath ended, it's dark out. I walked out of what they call the Jewish ghetto. I walked out with young Jews and all of a sudden on motorcycles drove up a gang of Moroccans, Muslims, and started screaming in French, Zionists, Zionists. And they started beating the Jews. And I remember thinking, I can't stand by. This is— I'm not going to let this happen with and stand by. So I kicked the ringleader so hard he actually like sort of flew in the air and fell down. And I thought they were going to kill me. But I spoke French better than I do now. I still speak it, but better than I do now. And I said to him, you touch me, just know I am friends with the American ambassador who is very close to the king, King Hassan. And that did it. They didn't touch me. Next, Cheryl in Bloomington, Indiana. Can you do an episode on anxiety and its effect on mood and happiness? I'd love to hear if your listeners have any advice on managing an anxious nature. I'm not a particularly anxious individual. I'll give you an example which is pretty dramatic, but it's, it's worth giving. People open up to me a lot, for good reason. I'm very open. But they open up to me and they will say— older people, for example— that they're scared of dying. And that causes some anxiety. Fear causes anxiety, correct. But I've always wondered, what is there to fear? Unless you fear going to hell, there's nothing to fear. There are two possibilities: either a, a hereafter, in which case I think that if you're good, you're rewarded, There are others who believe you're not rewarded if you're good, only if you believe in Jesus. Whatever the— whatever you're thinking about heaven, a lot of people will have that, or nothing will happen. There's nothing to fear in either case. Either it's good or it's nothing. The nothing isn't troubling. The world existed for billions of years before we were born. What were we then? Nothing. Did it bother you? No. Next, this is from Texas and Melissa in Richardson, Texas. Hi, Dennis. There is a term floating around more and more called generational trauma. I've heard it used in the context of African Americans and slavery and the Jews and the Holocaust. The theory is that the trauma experienced by previous generations is passed down to the next generations. What is your opinion on generational trauma? My rabbi talked about it at synagogue. Curious to know your thoughts. Thanks. Yes, it does exist. I've often noted in explaining Jews to non-Jews that Jews underwent, even if they lost no family member or anyone they knew in the Holocaust, the Holocaust was a, was a trauma. Basically, Jews have PTSD. It's, it's much less true for the next generation, but for my generation, born right after World War II, There, there is no question. I am very rational, and I was very affected by, by the trauma of something none of my relatives and no one I knew was affected by. But it's very difficult to be aware of what the Jews of Europe underwent. The horrors, the unspeakable horrors. And to think that it was brought upon every single Jew— babies and, and elderly were, were targeted for extermination— it, it affects you. And it did have a— there was a PTSD element in, in Jewish life, there's no question. With regard to Blacks, I, I can't comment nearly as knowledgeably, but it— that I, I don't understand. If, if 150 years later there is still a trauma over slavery, and there— look, there might be, but I, I don't fully understand it because this next generation Young Jews, I don't think, have nearly the trauma of the Holocaust that Jews who lived at the time, like my parents' generation, or right after my generation, have. But there is, there is such a thing. I, I've thought about this a fair amount. And I remember being on a panel with, with a Catholic and Protestant, very intelligent people, a long time ago. And it was pointed out that Protestants are the most optimistic of the groups— Protestant, Catholic, Jew. And it's because they didn't undergo trauma. Many Catholics did because of, of World War II as an example, and the suffering of Poles who were Catholic as an example, and of, of other groups in, in Europe. Protestants much less so. Protestants have it the best among Catholics, Jews, and Protestants, so they tend to be the most optimistic. They're the least traumatized. Dear Dennis Prager, my husband and I enjoy taking our 10-year-old son to the local symphony, and he loves great classical music. It seems at every performance they perform a new piece of music before the more traditional ones. It obviously takes great skill and many hours of practice to learn these pieces. I really dislike them. At a recent performance, there was an exceptionally difficult piano concerto that was just awful but masterfully performed. At the conclusion, the audience erupted in applause and leapt to their feet and gave a 5-minute standing ovation. I passively clapped for a few minutes and refused to stand. Stand. My son thought I was doing something wrong. How do you respond when amazing musicians perform awful pieces? Sonny, you have no idea how I resonate to your question. Anecdote, you'll like this. This is absolutely true. In my junior year, my third year of college, I was in England for the year. University of Leeds in the center of England. Well, they call it Northern England, but it's really the center like they call Northern California San Francisco, but it's really in the center. Okay. Anyway, it was 4 hours north of London. By British Rail. And I would periodically go into London to attend concerts. New York and London are the centers of classical music performance. So I went down and I— and again, they stuck in a piece of junk. For a soprano and piano. And my imitation of what it sounded like is as accurate as I can be to what I remember hearing. And I would have sung this way 10 minutes later, not just all these years later. And so on. It was— it wasn't music, it was human, the human voice and a piano. Okay, so the piece ends and the audience applauds. I suspect almost no one liked it. So it's a very interesting question. Are you applauding the musicians who have played junk, and do they take it as an applause of them or of them and the piece? I mean, after a Beethoven symphony, there's an uproarious ovation, but of course half of it is for the music and half of it is for the performers. All right, so now to your question. So it was a fiendishly difficult piece, a piano concerto, which means a piece for piano and orchestra, and it was junk. They stood for 5 minutes. So I get it that you're, you're applauding the performers even though you can't stand what they played. My own druthers would be that nobody applauded, even though the performers definitely deserve an applause. But I wish nobody applauded and that the, the orchestra officials would get the message: the audience did not come to hear junk. Not all contemporary music is junk, but most of it is. So at this concert that I attended with— where you had this singer and piano, there was the applause, and I politely went like this. Normally I'm yelling bravo or brava, and then the composer came out for a bow. That's different. That's not the performers, that's the composer. And when he came out, I booed. Now remember, I was 20 years old, alone, seated in one of the great halls of London. So a bunch of people in front of me turned around to look at me. And as if to say, what weirdo was sitting behind us? So they all turned around, looked at me, and I looked back at them and I said, did you like the piece? And they turned back around. I booed the composer and he deserved it. It's too bad the composer didn't come out in your case.

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All right, James Traverse, City, Michigan. Do you think there's such a thing as a spiritual gene? Here's the reason for the question. I have two brothers. One has no interest in religion and is agnostic. The other two, myself and my other brother, are very religious— LDS and Catholic respectively. Note that he doesn't say Mormon and Catholic. Mormons have been told to only say LDS. My no-interest agnostic brother once said to me, I didn't get the religious gene that you two did. What do you think of that? I don't accept this idea as it means determinism. Thoughts? Well, I think there's some truth to what your brother said. Let me explain. I am deeply God-centered, Bible-centered, religious, but I have no mystical gene. The, the non-rational parts of religion that move most religious people do very little for me. I'm not big into prayer. I'm not big into any, any of the non-rational elements of religion. By the way, I, I have nothing— not only do I have nothing against those who do, I sometimes I envy them. But I don't. I— so I think your brother is right about that. There, there are people who just gravitate naturally toward the mystical, toward the divine, toward religious. Where I differ with your brother is just because he's an agnostic does not excuse him from taking God, the Bible, and religion seriously. Agnostic schmagnostic. Either, either these things are worthy to incorporate into your life and into the life of your children if you have them, or they're not. And if they are, it's irrelevant if you're an agnostic. These are too important— the Bible, God, religion— They're too important for you to avoid and evade because of your agnosticism. So whether you have the gene, the religious gene, which I sort of believe there is such a thing like that— I don't know if it's gene, but built in— it doesn't matter. You should take, take this stuff seriously. That's been my life's work. To show rationally why God and the Bible are infinitely preferable to no God and no Bible. The Paris Olympics had an opening grandiose, a grandiose opening as every Olympics does, and it featured a trans and cross-dressing men in drag Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci's depiction of Jesus at the Last Supper. So the complete mockery of a basic set, a central and basic Christian tenet, the Last Supper. And as I said on my radio show, this represents the fact that we are not in a post-Christian, we're in a pre-Christian, pre-Jewish society. Uh, let's see, Columbia, South Carolina, and what's the name? The name is Huns. Okay, Huns in Columbia, South Carolina. You've often said that religious education teaches you that, quote, the biggest problem in your life is you, and that you should work on yourself instead of going around blaming the world for your problems. Correct. I've said that a lot. I attended religious schools from elementary to high school, and I never heard such clear thinking as this. I think that the vast majority of religiously educated people could not come up with this concept as an important takeaway in their upbringing. Were your teachers as clear as you are, or did this— or did this of concept— I guess of is not— or did this concept of working on yourself to fix the problems in your life Is that a product of your analysis of what you were taught? I think if more religious schools were as clear and blunt in their teachers, we as a society would have a stronger foundation to fall back on. Thank you for sharing your gifts with the world. They have truly impacted my life. Well, you hit a very sensitive spot in me. Why don't they teach— you know what, in our religious Christian school, in our religious Jewish school, we're going to teach you something you you're not gonna get in any regular school in this society, the belief that you have to fight you. You are the problem in your life, not society, not your parents, not racism, not misogyny, not patriarchy. You. That would be great. 'Cause everybody has to wrestle with two natures, human nature, which is universal, and their own nature, which is particular to themselves. But I knew— I, but I, I wasn't taught that in those words, but I was taught that I have to wrestle with my own nature.

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We live in a time where the moment you question the narrative, you're told to stop thinking and start complying. That's why what Angel is doing matters. With eye-opening documentaries like Thank You, Dr. Fauci and Like RFK: Legacy, Angel is willing to explore the issues others avoid. In a culture shaped by gatekeepers, Angel offers something rare: a platform for truth-seeking storytelling that isn't constrained by fear or conformity. Go to angel.com/prager, join the Angel Guild, and watch these films today.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.

And Here we go. Troy Bloomington, Minnesota. Dear Mr. Prager, I finally signed up for PragerUtopia and I'm a Prager United member as well. Thank you in both cases. I have been on your fireside chat a few times in video and written questions, so God bless you for answering me. It makes my week when you do. Great. Thank you. My question is What is your opinion on outlawing automatic guns for private ownership in the US? Criminals don't follow gun control anyway, and this seems like a move to make the citizen weaker against the government. I love you, Troy. Well, thank you. It's very kind. I appreciate your love. Look, I You're, you're right about criminals being able to get weapons, but they, they, they can't get automatic guns easily. I mean, you've got to be in organized crime to, to get machine guns, which is what fully automatic gun is, a machine gun. I mean, why do we outlaw bazookas and hand grenades? There's a level of, of danger inherent to a given weapon where we realize it just has to be regulated. You can't buy a tank. You can't buy a surface-to-air missile. And the argument, well, the bad guys will be able to get it— well, it isn't fully true, but to the extent that it is true, it doesn't obviate the argument. There is a cutoff point. Otherwise, there's no cutoff point. I mean, theoretically, would you give people nuclear weapons? All right, let's see here. We just have a few more minutes here. Well, I'll take the briefest one. Salem, Oregon. Do I have a name? Hannah. Do you have a favorite poem that comes to mind regularly? The answer, Hannah, is no. I don't even have a favorite poem that doesn't come to mind regularly. Talking about a religious gene earlier in that question, I don't have the poetry gene. I wish I did, but I don't. Amy St. Cloud, Minnesota. Dennis Prager: I agree with you that the punishment for premeditated murder should be the death penalty. My only hesitation, and I'd like to get your thoughts on it, given the current state of our intelligence agencies, should we really be going— should we really be giving our government that type of power? It's a good one. Yes, I, I'm still for it. The death penalty forces people to understand how terrible murder is. The only way a society tells society how bad an act is is by the punishment it levies. That's, that's one thing. And It is pretty rare at this point where there's been a— that there is an abuse of the death penalty. There might be abuses in other parts of the judicial system, but I don't believe about death penalty. The only abuse is among those who oppose it. They will just keep filing petition after petition. After petition. And, uh, finally, do you believe that faith in, in the practice of biblical Christianity is essential to the survival of our republic? Well, I certainly believe that the Bible is the what's the word, essential to the survival of our republic. I do believe that. And since Christians are the, by far, the majority of Americans, how they regard the Bible is really important. So I would regard that as essential to the survival of the republic. That's correct. All right, my friends, the questions coming in, I really think they're wonderful. I enjoy this very much.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

The good urge, called in Hebrew yetzer hatov—tov means good, yetzer is will—and the yetzer hara—hara means bad. So the bad yetzer and the good yetzer are in conflict, right? Right. And we all have it every day. It happens. In fact, this so shaped my life as a child when I learned it, I still think of it every day, all the time. This is what my good urge is saying, my good yetzer. This is what my bad yetzer is saying. It doesn't even apply just applies to ethical issues, but it could apply to, do I have that cheesecake? My bad gates here says, come on, what the hell, you live once, it's delicious, you're a nut, how you gonna forego that cheesecake? The other one says, well, you're what, Dennis, come on, Dennis, you know what enough cheesecake's gonna do to you.

Join us tomorrow to hear more on timeless wisdom with Dennis Prager. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.

We live in a time where the moment you question the narrative, you're told to stop thinking and start complying. That's why what Angel is doing matters. With eye-opening documentaries like Thank You, Dr. Fauci and RFK: Legacy, Angel is willing to explore the issues others avoid. In a culture shaped by gatekeepers, Angel offers something rare: a platform for truth-seeking storytelling that isn't constrained by fear or conformity. Go to angel.com/prager, join the Angel Guild, and watch these films today.